, and so secure prizes, plunder, and slaves. They frittered away
their strength on these minor enterprises. Again and again occasions
offered, when to concentrate their naval forces for a series of campaigns
that would sweep the Christian fleets one by one from the sea would have
made them masters of the Mediterranean, placed its commerce and its coasts
at their mercy, and opened the way for a career of conquest, but they
allowed these opportunities to escape.

The peril that menaced European civilization in 1571 was that at last the
Moslem powers of the Mediterranean were actually combining their sea forces
for a great effort of maritime conquest. Their operations were still
delayed by their traditional disposition to indulge in plundering raids, or
to wait for the fall of a blockaded fortress, instead of making the
destruction of the opposing sea power their first object. If the pashas of
Selim's fleets had really understood their business, they might have
destroyed the Christian squadrons in detail before they could effect their
concentration in the waters of Messina. But the Turkish admirals let the
opportunity escape them during the long months when the "Holy League" was
being formed and its fleets made ready for action.

That the danger was met by the organization of a united effort to break the
Moslem power on the sea was entirely due to the clear-sighted initiative
and the persistent energy of the aged Pius V. He had fully realized that
the naval campaign of 1570 had been paralysed by the Christian fleet being
directed, not by one vigorous will, but by the cautious decisions of a
permanent council of war. He insisted on the armament of 1571 being under
the direction of one chief, and exercising his right as chief of the
League, Pius V had to select the commander of its forces; he named as
captain-general of the Christian armada Don Juan of Austria.

Don Juan was then a young soldier, twenty-four years of age. He was the son
of the Emperor Charles V and his mistress, Barbara Blomberg of Ratisbon.
His boyhood had been passed, unknown and unacknowledged by his father, in a
peasant household in Castille. As a youth he had been adopted by a noble
family of Valladolid. Then Philip II had acknowledged him as his
half-brother, and given him the rank of a Spanish Prince. He studied at
Alcala, having for his friends and companions Alexander Farnese, the "Great
Captain" of future years, and the unfortunate Don Carlos. Don